AUSTIN — Rashad Charjuan Owens had dreams of being a music producer and was in Austin this week to attend the city’s famed South by Southwest festival, where the worlds of music, film and technology blur.

Instead, he’s being held by police, who say he was the driver of a gray Honda Civic that fled a patrol car, ran through a street barricade, raced the wrong way down a one-way street and plunged into a crowd of concertgoers early Thursday, killing two people — a man from the Netherlands on a bicycle and an Austin woman riding a moped — and injuring 23 others, several of them critically. The driver eventually crashed into a parked van and tried to flee on foot before police used a stun gun to subdue him.

“I saw bodies fly into the air, and there was blood and it was unbelievable,” said Jayda Luna, 21, a junior at Texas State University who was waiting in line to buy tickets when the person standing next to him was hit.

Formal charges are pending, but police said Owens, 21, of Killeen, will face two counts of capital murder and 23 counts of aggravated assault with a vehicle.

Police said the incident started when an officer on a drunken-driving patrol tried to stop a vehicle. Police Chief Art Acevedo indicated the suspect was drunk, but drunken driving was not among the charges police said Owens would face. Acevedo said investigators have obtained blood samples and were testing them.

Public records obtained by The Associated Press show that Owens had previous convictions in Alaska for drunken driving and in Texas for criminal trespass.

Acevedo said he believed Owens was so intent on evading the police that he willfully drove into the crowd.

“This is an individual who showed no regard for the human beings he plowed through in his attempt to get away,” the chief said at an early morning news conference.

Acevedo said the crash transformed Red River Street — which is on the northeast edge of an Austin entertainment district that’s packed at all hours of the day and night during South by Southwest — into “basically a very long crime scene.”

Hours after the incident, a pool of blood and bits of broken taillight were still in a crosswalk at the scene, with a trail of crimson droplets leading to the sidewalk. Still, concertgoers streamed in for another day of festivities, and by early afternoon, bass boomed through the area as bands played scheduled concerts nearby.

Now in its 27th year, South by Southwest has grown from a small showcase for up-and-coming bands to an international extravaganza, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors and top music and Hollywood stars. Acevedo said the festival had never experienced a similar deadly incident before.

“I think it would probably cause more problems for everyone to show up and be turned away from a show than to just move ahead,” Swenson said.

Three people injured in the crash were in critical condition Thursday afternoon.

“We are going to do our best for them, but these are some of the worst injuries that we see and not everybody with these kinds of injuries is going to survive,” said Dr. Christopher Ziebell, the emergency department director at the University Medical Center-Brackenridge, about three blocks from where the crash occurred and where most of the victims were taken.

The fatalities were identified as Steven Craenmehr, 35, an employee of Massive Music, a company with offices in Amsterdam, New York and London, and Jamie Ranae West, 27, a jewelry assembler at Eliane et Lena Boutique in Austin. West was on a moped that was struck by the car. Her husband, Evan West, was among those hospitalized.

Owens described himself on his Facebook page as a father and an employee of fast-food stores. He says he recently earned a GED from Alaska and attended a Florida university, studying toward a degree in music production.

His brother, Lamar Wilson, told the Austin American-Statesman that his brother was in Austin to perform at Club 1808. Owens, whose stage name is KillingAllBeatz or K.A.B254, was the father of six young children, one of whom lives in Alaska, Wilson told the American-Statesman.

His brother had borrowed the car he was in from a friend named Andrew Bramwell, Wilson said, Officials at Fort Hood said that Bramwell, a soldier at the Killeen military base, had reported his car stolen Thursday morning.

Public records obtained by The AP show that, as a 19-year-old, Owens was charged and pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in Fairbanks, Alaska, in October 2011. He was also charged with leaving the scene of an accident, but that charge was dismissed.

He also was charged in Alaska with criminal mischief related to a May 2012 incident. Court records show a warrant was issued for him in October 2012 after he failed to appear in court, and the case remains open.

Killeen officials said Owens was twice convicted of criminal trespass there — in August 2010, when he was arrested at Killeen High School, and in January 2011, when he entered a convenience stores from which he had been banned. He served 60 days in jail on each conviction and was ordered to pay $324 in court costs and fines on each.

Music seems to have been his passion, and he made no secret of his hip-hop roots. On Facebook, a photo of him posed next to a police car is accompanied by the words “WHAT THEY DREAD.” There is also this from his 21st birthday last July: “Thank god for letting me see another B-day facts are by 21 i would be die or in jail.” He goes on to note: “Happy to say am not die or in jail.”

To post a comment, log into your chosen social network and then add your comment below. Your comments are subject to our Terms of Service and the privacy policy and terms of service of your social network. If you do not want to comment with a social network, please consider writing a letter to the editor.